


everything is blue again, like morning

by andibeth82



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint as Ronin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Identity Issues, On the Run, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: The rational part of Natasha says that he’s fine, that he’s safe, that he’s just doing what he does best –- fucking around Europe, maybe Switzerland, in that old bolthole he swears doesn’t exist anymore, possibly with some drink and some semblance of time but not enough time to know that he should be paying attention to the world around him while he drinks his nightmares into a stupor.That’s the rational part, at least.The other part says that she knows she’s wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Apparently, I'm not done writing about post Civil War stuff yet when it comes to Clint Barton? Have you met me?)
> 
> This is, in essence, a post Civil War story that I've been wanting to tell for awhile, and an idea I've wanted to explore for Clint, which hinges on the following question: what if, after everything that happened, Clint decided to go rogue while he tried to deal with the consequences and aftermath of the Raft imprisonment?
> 
> This is a story about that. It's also a story about trust, change, and family. 
> 
> Thank you to Carrie for help in hashing this out, and for gecko for initial proofing and brainstorming.
> 
>  
> 
> _"Here I came to the very edge where nothing at all needs saying...and every day on the balcony of the sea wings open fire is born and everything is blue again like morning." - Neruda_  
> 

The air is putrid. It’s damp and musty, and the smell and the feel of it seeps into his bones. Clint breathes through the constricted air passing through his mask, centering himself, and then exhales slowly.

He’s been on his own for six months, and things haven’t gotten any easier. Not that he expects them to be easier. Sometimes, he snuck into bars and restaurants and sat in the back with his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, half-listening the news, just to see if Ross was still looking. Sometimes, he stole papers from convenience stores and read through the headlines while sitting on the hood of his stolen car, skimming through stories and marking pages in red pen under the moonlight.

It started easy enough -- a list, some names that he had time to think about and find while he was imprisoned. He had expected them to be more elusive, but in reality, a lot of the men Ross employed -- the ones that were responsible for his capture -- were easy to find. Some of them required a sharper, more intense approach; this particular stop, for example, has been more frustrating than usual. Clint’s been tracking the man since Nebraska, trailing him in his beat-up truck and biding his time. He could’ve taken him out earlier -- a motel would have done the trick, or a stop at the gas station bathroom. It was never a question of waiting for an opportunity.

But he can wait. He’s spent a long time waiting already; he can keep waiting.

The truck he’s following stops outside of what looks like an abandoned garage, the kind of place he thinks he might see in old heist movies, or maybe like something out of _The_ _Fast and The Furious_. Wouldn't be that far off, all things considered, given he's currently sitting in one of the lesser known parts of Japan, where no one really tried to visit or make a home in. He sits in the car parked some yards away, watching closely, and then reaches into the backseat for his gun. The uniform scratches his skin; it’s a little bit make-shift, because there hadn’t been much to work with after leaving the Raft. But in the absence of not having anything to really fight for, he had figured he could make some modifications. And, hell -- creativity was the one strong suit he had left.

It was about the only thing he had left, really.

Clint gets out of the car, and then walks slowly towards the garage. He slips inside soundlessly; the man is crouched in the corner concentrating on something in front of him and oblivious to the fact that anyone else might be around. He watches for a brief second, contemplating his options, and then trades his gun for the bow slung across his back.

“Jesus!”

The man turns around but barely makes another sound before he’s cornered, pressed to the ground with the bow against his throat. He squirms impossibly, but can’t move more than a few inches with the weight on top of him.

“Who the _fuck_ \--”

The words are smacked out of the man’s mouth as the bow lifts off his throat and slams into his teeth. Blood gushes from between his lips, a gaping silent scream, and there’s a groan of pain. Clint leans back until he’s sitting on top of the man with his weight evenly distributed, and regards him carefully.

“That yours?”

The man manages to look to the side and nods.

Clint snarls. “What is it?”

“A…” The man coughs, unable to get words out, but Clint doesn’t let up his hold. “A manifest.”

“A manifest of _what_?”

The man laughs as much as he can. “You really care? You’re pathetic. One of those Avengers dudes we took in, right? And now you’re, what? Trying to get some revenge?” He coughs again. “I’ve seen you.”

Clint doesn’t move, feeling the muscles in his jaw twitch, and he forces himself to remain stoic. It’s not that hard, not after doing it for weeks while Ross interrogated him about his fucking family.

“Yeah, I’ve seen you. You’re that archer that tried to protect the powered girl. You couldn’t kill a man if it mattered. You don’t got no guts. No one is gonna give you --”

Clint backhands him again with the stem of his bow, and the man shudders and groans as the wind and words are knocked out of him.

“You think you shouldn’t mess with me? You think I won’t kill you?” He leans forward, putting his mouth right against the man’s ear, and drops his voice to a menacing whisper. “You don’t know me. I _will_ kill you. And I want you to go back to your goonies and tell ‘em they should run and hide before they _all_ get killed.”

Clint draws back as the man spits more blood from his mouth. “Yeah, and what do I tell them? That some fucking carnie Avenger tried to jump me and threaten me?”

Clint glares through his mask and smiles, feeling a rush of violent energy surge through his bones. It’s freeing, it’s different, and it’s something he hasn’t felt in a long time.

He likes it.

“Tell ‘em Ronin sent you.”

 

* * *

 

_40._

Laura marks off the calendar as the farm wakes up, sunlight streaming through the curtains that are partitioned off into triangular sections. 40 days since the Raft jailbreak, since she had fallen to her knees on the kitchen floor while Cooper had been in the middle of homework when the phone rang with the cryptic message that the mission had been successful. 40 days since she had sat by the window, holding the phone in her hand and watching the screen, waiting for some kind of confirmation that Clint was coming home, or at least safe in Wakanda or back in New York.

40 days since she had let the light turn dark, realizing what she’s known for hours -- that for whatever reason, Clint wasn’t coming home.

_40._

Laura stares at the number and sighs quietly, pushing unruly hair out of her eyes as she turns her attention to the small work station set up inside the walk-in closet that previously housed the reading desk Clint had built for the nights that she wanted to stay up and read, but not bother him or one of the three babies sleeping in their bed. She picks up a small burner phone and dials a familiar number, rubbing her eyes with the back of her palm. Calls like this used to fill her with hope, a tingly feeling in her stomach that sent butterflies fluttering through her ribcage, an optimism that she had always carried within her that not even the Battle of New York or Hydra or Clint almost dying had managed to diminish.

She doesn’t feel anything except a dull sense of going through the motions, though, and she hasn’t for a long time.

“Mrs. Barton.”

“I assume there’s no news.” She’d stopped talking in code once the immediate danger of the consequences of the Raft outbreak had passed; regardless, T’Challa had assured her that any communication in and out of Wakandan channels would be heavily monitored and, if necessary, garbled and scrubbed of information that could be harmful.

“Unfortunately not.” T’Challa’s voice sounds soft and apologetic. “I know you have been worried. Believe me, we are doing everything we can from our end to try to find where your husband might be.”

“I appreciate it.” Laura tries to smile, even though she knows no one can see it. It helps her sound more positive, at least. “It’s not your fight.”

“I am a king, Mrs. Barton. I care about my people. And because of the loyalty and lessons your friends showed me, that includes caring about Clint.”

Laura swallows. “Well, in any case. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

“I am not the one who should be apologizing for things not being easy, Mrs. Barton.”

Laura doesn’t know what to say to that, and so she decides silence is better than trusting her voice until she can get ahold of her emotions.

“Please let me know if anything turns up.”

“As always,” T’Challa responds. Laura hangs up the phone with the same dull sense of despair, and even though the sun is bathing everything in golden clear light, she feels like she’s seeing everything in a haze of grey.

It would be that way for awhile until Clint came home. If he ever came home.

 _I can help you_ , Laura thinks as she gets up, walking out of the room and into Nathaniel’s nursery. _If you just told me where you were...if I knew that you even still wanted help. You’ve always let me help you. Why won’t you let me help you now?_ She stares down at the baby, who is mercifully asleep after waking up an hour ago with an upset stomach. Suddenly, she longs for someone to make noise in a house that seems too quiet and too calm.

“Mom?”

Laura’s torn from her thoughts by the voice that filters quietly into the room. She looks up as Cooper peeks around the door frame and her heart aches at the way he’s squinting sleep out of his eyes, the crease between his brows that’s a mirror image of her husband’s morning face.

“Mom, can I have breakfast?”

Laura nods, looking down at Nathaniel again before following him out of the room. Halfway down the stairs, Cooper turns and looks at his mom, hesitancy falling over his tired face.

“I had a dream about dad.”

“Oh.” Laura’s heart squeezes inside her chest. “What kind of dream?”

“Not a bad one,” Cooper says carefully, hopping over the creaking step in the middle of the stairs. “It was about the vacation we took to Disney last year. I dunno, I guess I miss him. You miss him too, right?”

“Yeah,” Laura says softly. “I miss him too.”

When they reach the bottom of the stairs, Cooper looks up at his mother with questioning eyes.

“Dad’s not coming home yet, is he?”

Laura sighs and glances out the living room window at the brightening day, as if she can somehow make the apparition of her husband appear just by wishing hard enough, like the movies she watches when she can’t fall asleep on her own.

“No, sweetheart. Not yet.”

 

* * *

 

 

The rational part of Natasha says that he’s fine, that he’s safe, that he’s just doing what he does best – fucking around Europe, maybe Switzerland, in that old bolthole he swears doesn’t exist anymore, possibly with some drink and some semblance of time but not enough time to know that he should be paying attention to the world around him while he drinks his nightmares into a stupor.

That’s the rational part, at least.

The other part says that she knows she’s wrong.

She sees it in the way they look at her -- Steve, Tony, Rhodey -- she’s been in this game long enough to know what people mean when they drop their gaze and narrow their eyes, when their movements become hesitant and slightly fragile in someone else’s presence. She thinks maybe they don’t say it because they know too much, that even with a dislocated shoulder and a body wound tight with exhaustion, she would be able to take them apart with one hand if they ever said the words out loud.

They had their reasons for thinking otherwise, Natasha knew that. But they didn’t know him. And their reasons didn’t necessarily mean that Clint Barton was _dead_.

She destroys three punching bags in succession before she takes the elevator up to the main floor of Avengers compound, stepping into the living room dripping sweat onto the floor as Steve frowns, looking up from his tablet.

“Stark’s going to kill you.”

“Stark has bots,” Natasha retorts, walking past him until she reaches the bedroom she’s been occupying. “They can clean up my mess.” She slams the door without thinking about it and heads straight for the shower in the attached bathroom, turning the faucet up to near ninety on the automatic temperature gauge. Sticking her head underneath the spray, she suppresses the urge to scream as boiling liquid cascades over her shoulders and drenches her hair.

Clint hated hot showers.

She bites down on her tongue as the past tense of the sentence rattles through her brain and shoves her hands across her scalp vigorously, concentrating on each finger carding through damp strands as if she can somehow erase the thoughts that refuse to vacate her mind. When she finally steps out of the shower, her skin tone nearly matches the color of her hair.

“Natasha.” The voice on the other end of the door is ragged. “I know you’re in there.”

She pulls on a fresh t-shirt and ignore the sound; Stark’s got a nice little security lock that she changes the password for every night before she goes to bed, and it provides a protection unparalleled by most of her safehouses. Granted, she’s also aware that Steve could probably break down the door if he wanted to, but she knows after everything they’ve been through, he respects her too much to ever invade her privacy like that.

“Just because we took down a helicarrier together doesn’t mean I’m going play therapist,” she says as she opens the door, closing it abruptly behind him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Steve says as he enters, not sounding sorry at all. “I forgot that we also fought against a government regulation and saved the world from aliens.”

Natasha ignores his words and Steve sighs, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck as if he’s not quite sure what to say.

“Natasha --”

“Don’t.”

“Do you really think --”

“No,” she interrupts bluntly, squeezing water out of her hair with the same harshness that she’s using in her words. She stares at the mirror on the vanity, surreptitiously avoiding his stare. “I don’t.”

Steve opens his mouth, and then closes it. “So you’re not going to admit it’s just a _little_ bit weird that everyone has been out of the Raft for over a month, and you’ve heard nothing?”

Natasha moves her lips until they fall into a straight line. “We disappear off the grid, Rogers. It’s what we do. It’s what _he_ does.”

“Except not like this,” Steve argues. “He would contact you.”

Natasha turns on her heel, feeling her patience fray as if all her seams are coming loose, threatening to fall apart in a pile around her. “You have no idea what Barton would or wouldn’t do in this situation,” she snaps. “You spent three days in battle with him, two of those days he was brainwashed and one of those days, we killed aliens and ate shwarma. You _don’t know_.”

“You’re right,” Steve agrees just as harshly. “You’re right as _always_ , Natasha. I don’t know him at all. He didn’t come to Germany to help me save the world from super soldiers, and we didn’t spend months training together, and I’ve never been to his secret home that apparently no one else knows about. So of course, I have no idea what I’m talking about when I say I think it’s pretty damn clear he would have contacted you, even if he was off the grid after getting out of a goddamn prison.”

Natasha doesn’t answer, walking back towards the bathroom and busying herself with applying face wash until she hears the door shut quietly behind her. It’s only after at least five minutes of silence have passed that she allows her shoulders to slouch, her stance evening out as she leans over the sink in a show of solitary defeat.

Because Steve may be practical and Steve may not know Clint the way she does...but the thing is, she knows Steve’s right.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony corners her when she’s finishing up dinner (which she’s eaten alone), carrying her plate to the sink.

“You haven’t heard from Barton, have you?”

“If I had, don’t you think you’d know?”

She watches his face; there’s a fine line with Stark. He’s been more or less amicable since their fight after the battle at the airport, but Natasha’s not dumb enough to think all their grievances have been aired or forgiven. They may have returned to cohabiting -- largely because they needed to regroup and didn’t have any other place to do so outside of their own boltholes -- but things were still tense, and none of them were going to be normal for a long time.

“Look, I’m just taking a shot in the dark here, but it’s not like Barton to disappear without calling you.”

“Right. So you think he’s dead,” Natasha supplies, scrubbing vigorously at her plate, noticing the spidery lines along the edges of the porcelain and not stopping to wonder if they’re due to her own work. “Isn’t that what everyone thought when you disappeared for three months in the Middle East?”

Tony falls silent as Natasha reaches for a towel.

“In case you need you be reminded, there’s a lot of dead going around these days,” she continues pointedly. “Coulson’s leading his own team, and Fury’s in hiding, and while Cap was looking for Barnes, he was probably wandering around Target.”

Tony frowns. “Yeah, I know. But --”

“Barton’s fine,” she interrupts, clipping her words. “If he wasn’t, I would know.”

She says the sentence with as much confidence as she can manage, her tone steady, her hands curled into fists as the plate slips out of her hand and cracks in the sink.

 

* * *

 

 

The most important thing Natasha can tell herself is that she’s _aware_ \-- she’s aware that it’s strange, she’s aware that there’s something wrong, she’s aware that she’s unsettled despite the lies she tells everyone around her.

She had woken up the morning after her conversation with Tony, stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and painstakingly talked herself out grabbing her suit and her gear. It was one thing to run off having an inkling of the trouble your partner was in, but it was another to go into the field entirely blind, with the absence of any tracking or outside help. Natasha is no stranger to following intuition, just like she’s no stranger to disobeying orders and picking up and chasing after Clint. But as she had stared at herself and rubbed one of the scars on her arm, she knew she had to recognize there was a line.

The sunlight is starting to die above her by the time she’s made it to Central Park, situating herself on an empty bench.

“Is this how you’re keeping a low profile these days?” Pepper asks when she sits down next to Natasha, handing her a styrofoam cup.

“Depends on what you mean by low profile,” Natasha admits, taking the coffee. “I didn’t ask you to come here.”

“I know.” Pepper swings out her hair and takes a seat next to her. “But since I’m not one of your super friends, and since I’m _also_ estranged from one of your teammates, I thought maybe it would be nice to sit for awhile with someone who wasn’t going to ask you about stuff.”

 _Stuff_. Pepper knows as well as Natasha does that they’re skirting around the real subject of their talk, but Natasha’s not going to bother to open up if she doesn’t want to. Their relationship had softened over the years, largely thanks to the events of New York, though Natasha still looked at Pepper more like an acquaintance -- someone she could have a glass of wine with and talk about personal things with but who, at the end of the day, kept her barriers where it mattered.

“When Tony disappeared, I didn’t believe it,” Pepper continued, her voice light, as if they’re having any other conversation. “Obie -- Obadiah -- he kept telling me that he was dead. That I should sign the company over to him, that there was no way Tony was coming back.” She allows a laugh to pass through her lips. “The newspapers and the magazines, they were convinced there was no way he was alive. Rhodey, he saw that convoy blow up, and he said the same thing, even though he probably didn’t believe it. And yet…”

“And yet,” Natasha picks up, staring into the distance. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Pepper shrug.

“I didn’t know Obadiah was the way he was -- looking for a way to get Tony out of the picture, so that he could take over Stark Industries. But I still didn’t believe he was dead. And maybe it was stupid, but I knew him. I knew him, and no one else did.”

Natasha nods, grinding her teeth together. For her, for Clint, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for either of them to disappear. It was even less ordinary that they would check in with each other, unless one of them was in serious danger, and even then it was a by-the-book scenario where they probably wouldn’t bother unless they absolutely needed to. It was a measure of trust that was, like their history, something Natasha couldn’t have with anyone else.

“You know him,” Pepper continues after a long silence, as if she can read Natasha’s mind. “And you _know_ that he’s not dead.” Her voice takes on a careful edge, as if she’s challenging her. “So forget what everyone else thinks. Where do _you_ think he is?”

Later that night, Natasha does go through her gear, sifting through the widows bites and the gun cartridges and the various accessories she’s kept hidden under the bed. She sits in the middle of the spread of weapons like a child playing with toys, absently loading and unloading her glock as she stares out the large ceiling to floor window, the one that overlooks a wide field. She can see Sam running back and forth in the distance; he’d been running and training a lot more since he got out of the Raft and Natasha suspects she knows why.

“Hell of a view, isn’t it?”

Natasha isn’t surprised by the voice behind her as much as she’s annoyed by it.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Steve snorts. “Nice language, Romanoff.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“You didn’t lock your door,” Steve answers, and Natasha inwardly curses. She should be more careful. She’s _used_ to being more careful. Then again, it was so late at night she didn’t think she had to worry about anyone barging in on her feelings.

“You think any of us are going to stop you if you go after him?” Steve asks, and she notices the way his eyes stray to the pile of equipment. Instinctively, she knows she can’t and won’t lie.

“What do you care? You thought he was dead.”

“Yeah,” Steve says carefully. “I did. But I thought Bucky was dead for a long time.”

She knows his words are meant to be a comfort, but she wants to scream _it’s not the same thing_. With Steve, he had seen Bucky, and he had proof that he was actively living and breathing. Clint was a mystery, whose being alive existed only in the fact that Natasha refused to believe otherwise.

“You could come with me.”

Even before he responds, she knows the answer, and the confirmation of what she assumes no one has bothered to actually ask him about.

“I can’t. I have to stay here, and I have to fix all of this. Somehow.”

“It’s not your responsibility to fix,” Natasha answers, because she believes it. Steve was as bad as her when it came to picking up the blame, and in this situation, Tony was just as guilty as he was. Natasha hadn’t known what had happened between Tony and Barnes and Steve in Siberia, she had been so focused on trying to keep it together that she had gone to the farm and ignored everything relating to Avengers business, until Steve had called telling her that they had busted the Raft -- and that Clint had disappeared.

“It’s not, but I don’t have a choice,” Steve says, looking at the door.

Natasha snorts. “And I guess you’re going to tell me that I don’t have a choice in believing Barton is dead?”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow and picks up her gun. “Well, if you were here for a moral support talk, you’ve wonderfully failed.” She continues to twirl the gun between her fingers, until Steve reaches out and puts his hand on hers, stilling her movements.

“Natasha. Do you really think he’s alive?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t bother to finish the rest of her sentence -- that he had to be, because he was him. Because they were them. Because going AWOL sucked, but you could survive anything if you were good enough at your job.

Because he _was_.

She doesn’t tell anyone when she leaves. It’s not that she doesn’t want to deal with what they’ll say -- even though she doesn’t -- and it’s also not that she thinks they’ll try to stop her. But Natasha’s never had to ask permission for anything, and she’s definitely not about to start when it’s regarding something that she knows she’s in control of.

She leaves Stark a note. She leaves Pepper a card with a short message of thanks and a gift card for Starbucks. She doesn’t leave Steve with anything. She sleeps two hours before she gets up and slips out, making a detour down to the garage so that she can grab the spare keys to one of Stark’s fancy cars. She doesn’t bother to ask beforehand.

(He had saved the world at least twice, he could spare to lose a car.)

 

* * *

 

 

Clint’s bone-weary tired when he sits down at the bar at the edge of Nebraska’s border and orders a whiskey sour.

The bartender sets him up nicely, and he orders another round before he’s done with the first. Sufficiently tipsy, he pulls out his phone, and as his finger hovers over the keys, his vision blurs.

Clint blinks, trying to stop the water in his eyes from spilling over. Every single day, it hurt more and more, the fact that he missed Laura and he missed Cooper, and Lila and Nathaniel. He couldn’t even try to think of the fact that by now, his baby must be growing steadily every day, becoming more and more of a person. Clint was missing that, the same way he had missed that with Cooper and Lila when he was working at SHIELD more than he was home.

But he can’t go home.

 _No one wants a criminal as a father_ , he thinks sullenly. Laura would talk to him and tell him otherwise, she would try to make him believe he wasn’t a terrible person. But Clint knows there’s no way out of it. Even if he went home and pretended nothing had happened, there were still questions he had to answer for. There were still things that made him ashamed to be a father. And a husband. And, to an extent, a partner.

He takes another sip of his drink and closes his eyes. He sees Lila, square face and bright blue eyes, begging her mom to let her be Hawkeye for Halloween, even though she’s a girl. He swallows down hurt at what he knows -- that he’s not Hawkeye anymore. At least, not in the way his children have always known him to be. He puts the phone facedown on the bar, trying to re-center himself, and that’s when he his attention is diverted.

It’s a group of three girls, all of them who look no older than fifteen -- definitely not old enough to drink legally, but old enough to pass for being at a bar, and to pass for being attractive enough to get hit on by drunken older men, which is what Clint is witnessing. He watches out of the corner of his eye while he sips his drink, and sees a man step forward, pushing a girl with red hair as he puts his hands on her body.

The girl recoils instantly, and even from far away, Clint can tell that the action is unwarranted. He speaks up before he thinks about it, loud and gruff, and then tosses back his drink, getting up from his stool.

“Hey.”

One of the girls turns quickly, but the man advancing on the redhead doesn’t even look away.

“ _Hey_.”

The man finally turns around with a sneer. “Yeah, what?”

Clint’s fist hits the man’s face before he can think of a response. The girls scream, a glass shatters, and Clint hits him again.

And again.

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha breaks the speed limits because no one, not even America or the State Police, can tell the Black Widow what to do.

The problem is, she doesn’t know where she’s going.

It’s hard for her to admit that she has no real idea where Clint could be. The Raft was, in essence, in the middle of nowhere, and Steve had told her that after he had gotten them out, they had taken refuge in a small bunker off the grid in Eastern Europe. But when Clint had bolted, refusing to return with the rest of the group, no one had been able to track him -- not even Wanda.

 _But he’s not dead,_ Natasha thinks as she steers the car towards an exit on the highway, suddenly tired. Pepper had been right, the voice of reason no one else had bothered to use -- Natasha knew her partner better than anyone, so where did _she_ think he was?

At a rest stop in Delaware, she had written out a list and crossed off a few options. He wasn’t anywhere close to home, because there was no way he would consider getting close enough to Laura and the kids, so the crappy motel on the edge of the Iowa border and the old warehouse that doubled as a bar for junkies and misfits was out of the question. She can’t say for certain whether or not he had left the country -- it was a fair enough guess, but going _that_ far off the grid tended to only happen when one of them was going through something that required a complete mental break. This certainly counted, but Natasha’s gut tells her that it’s probably not the right guess.

She pulls into a 24-hour diner and orders a coffee, staring at her list with a furrowed brow while drinking as fast as her iron tongue will allow. She’s concentrating so hard that she doesn’t even realize someone has sat down across from her until the deep voice speaks nonchalantly, causing her to spill her coffee down her flannel shirt.

“So you’re not going to at least tell his wife what you’re doing?”

Natasha glares, grabbing for a spare napkin. “What the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “That’s what I get for tailing you for days on end? You run a lot of red lights, Nat.”

“You’re a fucking piece of work, you know that?”

Steve shrugs. “I’ve known you long enough that I think I can consider that a thank you.”

Natasha sighs, throwing the sodden napkin down on the table, and tries not to think about the fact that she’s going to have to pay _more_ money for another cup. “I thought you weren’t joining me on this joy ride because you were fixing whatever shitstorm happened in Siberia.”

Steve winces. “I am. I mean, I will. But, uh. I got some information, and I think it could help you. And I needed to tell you.”

“Right.” Natasha snorts out a laugh. “And you couldn’t have just called me, like a normal person? Sent an owl?”

“You didn’t exactly strike me as Hermione Granger,” Steve responds, leaning back and crossing his arms.

Natasha grins. “Well, well. Someone’s learning about modern culture.” She sighs, leaning her elbows on the table. “So what scintillating piece of information do you have for me, Harry Potter?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Well. I thought you’d like to know that we’ve been tracking a bunch of news reports and social media updates. We’ve been trying to hone in on anything we should be aware of with Ross. And, well. What we did catch was some transmission about a body that was found.”

For a brief moment, Natasha’s heart stops beating. She focuses on keeping her face impassive while her stomach threatens to upend its contents; Steve wouldn’t just come in here and sit down at a table after trailing her for days and drop the fact that Clint was dead. Natasha takes a deep, silent breath and lets it out slowly, letting her focus come back to her.

“Fascinating,” she replies dryly, picking up her coffee again. “Really, Steve. Perfect information right there.”

“God, you were always a brat,” Steve says, shaking his head. “That’s not the information. The information is that someone _saw_ the body being disposed of. And whoever was doing it was a guy who fits Clint’s description pretty well.”

Natasha’s breath catches in her throat, this time for an entirely different reason. “But no...no bow or anything?”

Steve shakes his head and Natasha doesn’t know why she’s not surprised; if he was on the run he wouldn’t carry his bow around. On the other hand, it wasn’t likely he would be careless enough to stash it somewhere, either, especially if he didn’t have a place to stay.

“Where?”

“Near the Nebraska border. The lake is called McConaughy Lake. It’s --”

Natasha stands, sliding out of the booth. “I got it.”

“Nat.” Steve’s scrambling behind her, grabbing her arm. Natasha wrenches away and strides towards the door, pushing it open and nearly mowing down a family of four who are also walking inside.

“This again? Steve, I don’t owe you anything. I appreciate that you went out of your way to get me this information, I really do. But I don’t need you to come with me for this --”

“I was going to say,” Steve interrupts, a smirk emerging on his face, “that you should leave a tip.”

Natasha opens her mouth to respond, then closes it slowly. “Dammit, Rogers.” She leans back against the railing and closes her eyes. After a moment, she becomes aware of a softer, larger hand on her own.

“You’re not telling Laura, are you? That you might have found him?”

Natasha swallows down a lump in her throat, deciding to choose her words carefully. “There are ways to let her know what I’m doing without making her worry even more. She’s working with T’Challa. Wakanda has the best security and resources we can hope for. It’s far superior than what we have after everything that happened.” When she opens her eyes, Steve is looking at her gravely, concern lacing his eyes.

“Natasha. That body...the fact that he was the one _with_ the body…” He trails off, exhaling. “You’re not sure he’s going to be Clint when you find him, are you?”

Natasha wants to refute. She wants to tell Steve what she told him before, that he didn’t know Clint, because he didn’t. She wants to tell him that there was no way he would fall so easily to whatever Ross had done to him in the Raft, that it couldn’t have been worse than Loki, or worse than HYDRA, or worse than the time Natasha had flipped her Red Room switch and almost killed Laura while they were in the house together. She bites down on her lower lip, trying to find her voice.

“No.”

 

* * *

 

 

He only comes back to himself when he’s weighing the body down before throwing it into the river.

It’s because of the knots.

They aren’t practical, he realizes, frowning as he stares down at the man who he’s more or less beaten to death outside the bar. Nat would give him hell for that. Shit, _Laura_ would give him hell for that -- _you know how to tie knots, Clint. I married a SHIELD agent, not a boy scout. Who taught Cooper how to hang the tire swing from the tree?_

He bends over, crouching low to the ground, and undoes the binds that are holding the man’s hands together. Steadying himself with a breath, he re-ties them carefully, the scars on his fingers cracking into bloodied warts as he pulls tight.

It’s an old trick Natasha had taught him, because as good as he was with tying knots, she was better. She was a Russian assassin. He only had the skills of a circus carnie and a lot of intuition, and a history of breaking out of handcuffs.

 _It’ll look like it’s easy to undo them because it looks like a simple bow tie_ , he can hear her explaining in his mind. She had smelled like peppermint that day, the day that she had explained her tricks -- he remembers because it was rare that Natasha smelled like anything but sweat and gunpowder, but she was staying at the house over the weekend and had used Laura’s shampoo that morning.

 _What the hell, Nat._ He had looked down and grumbled out the words. _It’s a whipping knot. I know how to tie them._

_Not like this you don’t._

Clint had watched in fascination as she had taken twine and wrapped it around the rope, fingers working deftly to bring the rope and twine together. Her hands had moved so fast he had barely been able to keep up with what she was doing; one blink and another knot would appear and the twine was through the loop, with Natasha pulling securely.

_Jesus, you’re like a goddamn girl scout._

Natasha had smiled dangerously. _Call me a girl scout again and I’ll punch you._

Clint replays the memory in his mind, feeling a little guilty, and then finishes working the ends of the twine throughout the rope. It’s shoddier than Natasha would have made it, but when he tugs, it doesn’t move from the man’s wrists, so he feels satisfied enough.

He stands, pushing the body towards the end of the riverbed. The weight of the body against the water and the subsequent loud splash sends droplets spraying onto his face and arms, and then he’s down on his knees, retching into the lake.

 _Pathetic_ , he thinks as he hauls himself up. Carefully moving to a different part of the lake, he dips his dirty hands and washes out his mouth, splashing water over his eyes. He didn’t need to have shame about killing someone -- it’s what he had been doing all his life. Hell, it’s what he had been doing since he left the Raft, and he certainly never lost sleep over any of Ross’ minions that he’d incapacitated.

Besides, what if that was Laura at the bar? Natasha? _Lila?_

He had done something good. Even if he didn’t feel good about it, he had to believe that he had done something good.

 _That’s who Ronin is_ , he thinks grimly. _Lawful good_.

Clint takes one last look at the river, making sure he can’t see the body anymore, and then walks back towards the bar. Most of the people have cleared out in the wake of the altercation, but a few have gone back to their drinks, unfazed. The girls are huddled together by the edge of the bar, and Clint spots them as soon as he walks in.

“Good,” he says gruffly as he walks up, keeping his face impassive. “You’re still here.”

The redhead nods, tears still streaking down her cheeks, and Clint fights to keep his own daughter’s face from flashing in front of his eyes.

“You girls got somewhere to go? Names?”

The girl bites down on her lip. “Suzie. And we...” She looks over at her two friends and clears her throat. “We have a hotel. But we’re just here for the night.”

Clint can hear the shakiness in her voice, the one that signals what she probably won’t say out loud, especially to a stranger who has just beat someone up -- they’re not entirely okay with being on their own in a place close to where they’ve almost been compromised. And, Clint surmises, it probably wasn’t the safest place to stay, either.

“Here.” He reaches into his pocket and Suzie recoils. Something nags in Clint’s mind, and he tries to push the thought away as he withdraws his hand, holding out a roll of bills. Suzie eyes him suspiciously, and Clint all but shoves them into her hands.

“That’ll get you guys something nicer. And probably with better security.”

“Thank you,” Suzie mumbles, looking at her friends, who are consciously avoiding any conversation. She grabs one by the arm and walks quickly out of the bar, and Clint slumps down in a chair, suddenly exhausted.

When he thinks about it later, he’ll figure that tiredness combined with the adrenaline crash combined with too much thinking all played a factor in the fact that he didn’t see the knife that flashed in front of his eyes, until he felt the pain in his leg and a hard knock to the side of his head.

 _Okay_ , he thinks, fighting to stay upright on the chair. _This looks bad._

And then everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO sorry it took so long to get another chapter up. It won't always be this long, I swear. Come yell at me with feelings on Tumblr at @isjustprogress!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies because I said I'd update this weekly/bi-weekly and now it's been...two months. And the only excuse I have is that brains are dumb, and I hit a plot snag. 
> 
> But with the semi-believable rumors that Clint will be taking on the Ronin mantle in Avengers 4, I've gotten back on track, because I really believe in this story and want to make sure I tell it the way it's been rolling around in my brain for awhile. I swear updates will be back on track! I appreciate everyone who is reading and I hope you stay along for the ride. :)

The first thing Clint becomes conscious of when he wakes up again is that he hurts all over. His head hurts, and his leg hurts, and his whole body hurts in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. He opens his eyes slowly and blinks, trying to figure out where he is and why the sky looks so white. He’s pretty sure judging from the amount of pain he’s in that he’s not dead, and, well -- he’s been close to death enough times that he actually knows what it feels like to wonder if he’s passed into that other realm or not. 

But the more he comes into consciousness, the more he realizes he’s not anywhere he recognizes, and that scares the shit out of him. His mind immediately floods with memories and images of the Raft, of Ross and white lights that are blinding -- he can see Ross, he can hear him, his quiet low voice asking Clint what he really stood for and who he was protecting. He bolts upright despite the pain, and a hand immediately steadies him. For a moment, he’s even more disoriented, and he thinks he might throw up.

“It’s about time you were awake.”

Clint grunts, trying to get his bearings. The voice doesn’t sound familiar, but it’s a woman, and he knows Ross and his minions are all men.

“Who are you?”

The woman hesitates. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” Clint mutters, closing his eyes. He realizes when he puts his head back that he’s been lying on some sort of bed, because there’s a soft pillow underneath his skull. He hears the sound of chairs scraping across the floor and when he opens his eyes, he has to make sure he’s not dreaming. He’s looking at a face he hasn’t seen in years, and he’s pretty sure when he  _ had _ last seen her, he was sure he’d never see her again.

“ _ Morse _ ?”

Bobbi smiles apologetically. “So you do remember.”

Clint groans as he moves again, noticing the bandage wrapped around his pantsless leg. Without warning, the events of the last night (or nights, he realizes; he’s not really sure how long he’s been out for) come flooding back.

“You fucking  _ attacked _ me?”

Bobbi snorts. “I’m sure that’s what you’d like to believe,” she says dryly, moving closer and leaning forward. “It may be hard to grasp, for someone who walked out on me all those years ago when his temper got the best of him. But I actually saved you.”

“From what?” 

Bobbi hesitates. “From who. You’ve made quite a name for yourself, Hawkeye.”

Clint flinches at the name, shaking his head, even though it makes him feel even more dizzy. “Don’t call me that.”

Bobbi inclines her head, giving him a look. “Clint --”

“I said, don’t call me that!” he barks, reeling back as Bobbi starts to reach out. “That’s not who I am now, okay? You of all people should understand...god, can you please work with me?”

Bobbi looks like she wants to protest, but her open mouth closes and her lips slot themselves into two straight lines indicative of annoyance. “Okay,” she says finally. “Then you wanna tell me what’s going on,  _ Ronin _ ?”

Clint lets his eyes stray to the floor, because he suddenly can’t meet her gaze. “I am going to, you know.” He nods at the ground. “Go home. At some point.”

“That’s not even remotely close to what I asked or meant,” Bobbi answers in exasperation. “And you know it.” She takes a deep breath as she gets up, and then moves to sit beside him on the bed. “Look, Clint...I know it’s been awhile, and I don’t know what mental break you’re currently on. I really don’t. But if you don’t stop this, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

_ I know _ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t say it out loud, because he doesn’t want to die. Not really. He wants to go home and be a dad and see his family again. But he knows he can’t, and since he can’t, well…

“It’s better,” he says slowly. “Trust me. The world doesn’t need Hawkeye anymore. It doesn’t need any of us.”

“You know that’s not true,” Bobbi says gently. “Or you wouldn’t care so much about trying not to be the person I’ve always known you as.”

Clint looks down at his leg again, noting how spots of blood are starting to seep through the bandage. Bobbi follows his gaze and swears softly.

“Stitches must be coming loose. You mind?”

He shakes his head at the question. “You’ve seen me without pants before.”

Bobbi snorts out a laugh. “More than once, Barton. That’s the joy of eloping.” She helps him ease back onto the bed, so that his leg is elevated, and starts unwrapping the bandage. Clint sucks in a breath as he watches it fall away.

“Yeah, they got you pretty bad,” Bobbi says apologetically as she inspects the wound. “You probably would’ve bled out if I hadn’t gotten the jump on them. Anesthetic?” She leans over and picks up a flask, holding it out. Clint nods and takes it from her, tipping it back; the vodka tastes like rubbing alcohol and stings his tongue, and he resists the urge to puke back up.

“How did you find me?”

Bobbi takes the flask back and drinks before putting it down. “Wasn’t that hard. Like I said, you’ve been making a pretty good name for yourself. What happened with the Accords...with everything…” She trails off as she takes a fresh bandage and lays it out next to her. “Anyway, it didn’t just affect you. And I happened to be paying attention.” Bobbi picks up a needle, prodding at the stitches coming loose. Clint swears loudly, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I also know you happen to be a fan of revenge, and that you get angry. Putting two and two together wasn’t hard. You’re not exactly keeping things quiet.” She starts stitching easily and slowly, and Clint can tell she’s trying not to pull too much. “I wasn’t intending to follow you, but then you started making headlines underground, and I figured you didn’t have anyone watching your back.” She stops talking and Clint knows she’s waiting for him to talk, but he can’t make himself confirm what she want to know. So, he’s not surprised when she finally comes out with it.

“I take it Natasha doesn’t know about this personality change.”

“Dunno.” He winces out of habit, even as Bobbi makes a particularly hard tug on a stitch. “Haven’t talked to her since before I was in prison.”

Bobbi doesn’t answer, but Clint can tell she’s silently judging his response. He sighs softly.

“I’m not trying to be the bad guy, you know.”

“Mmmhmm.” Bobbi puts down the needle and wipes her hands, leaving red on her jeans. “But you’re going around hurting people.”

“Because they  _ deserve _ to be hurt!” Clint protests loudly, watching Bobbi re-wrap his wound. “These people, they hurt me! They were gonna hurt my family! They attacked me, they --”

“And the man you killed at the bar?” Bobbi asks, giving him a look. “He wasn’t some undercover spy working for Thaddeus. He just had too much to drink.”

Clint’s breath grows faster and louder as he remembers the young girls, the terrified looks in their eyes and face of the oldest, reminded him of his daughter. “He was going to hurt innocent people. I reacted, okay?” He grunts as he adjusts himself on the bed, and Bobbi starts gathering her supplies. “Why do you care so much? I thought you had your own fights and shit.”

Bobbi looks up at his words, autumn blonde hair falling over her face. “My previous agenda and I aren’t really on speaking terms anymore,” she says carefully. “It’s a long story. I’m underground, now.” She manages a smile. “What can I say, old husbands bring me out of the woodwork.”

Clint rests his head against the bedframe. “We were barely married. You shouldn’t have come.”

“Right, like I would’ve left you to die in the hands of your enemies,” Bobbi says, rolling her eyes. “You think they would’ve cared enough to stitch you up?”

Clint rubs his cheeks, his head starting to pound again. He figures the alcohol probably isn’t helping, but it’s not like he would have been able to take any kind of pill anyway in his current condition. He’s adept enough at being able to tell what’s wrong, aside from his injury: mild concussion, dehydration, a few sprains, blood loss. None of those things lent themselves very well to painkillers that didn’t come from authorized medical professionals. 

“So who were they?”

Bobbi bites down on her bottom lip. “No one I recognized,” she admits softly. “From what I’d gather, they were Ross’ minions. Probably the same guys you were tracking on your own.”

“I found a guy,” Clint offers. “In Japan. He said something about a manifest.”

“A manifest?” Bobbi’s brow creases. “A list?”

“That’s what I thought,” Clint says, sitting up more rigidly and keeping his leg elevated. “But what I took from him wasn’t a piece of paper. It was a tape. I haven’t listened yet.”

“Well, that negates me asking my next question,” Bobbi says, tossing her hair. “What kind of manifest do you think it is?”

“I haven’t gotten that far,” Clint answers. “Kind of...you know...trying to get my head around --”

“Being a dark vigilante?” Bobbi interrupts.

“Something like that,” he mumbles, looking across the room. For the first time, he realizes he’s in a decently nice place. It’s a house, but a small house -- one story; he can see the kitchen through the open bedroom door. There are curtains, though, and some nice china, and the place looks lived in enough for Clint to assess that this wasn’t just a random shack. Probably one of Bobbi’s safe houses, though he hadn’t been aware of any safe houses she had in Nebraska. Then again, it had been some years since he’d even seen her. For all he knew, she was like Natasha -- an onion of mystery, multiple layers that he thought he had peeled back but apparently hadn’t peeled back far enough. As he takes in his surroundings, something slots into place in his foggy brain, and he forgets all about the question he’s going to ask.

_ Bow...where was his bow? _

“Where’s my bow?”

“What?” Bobbi meets his eyes, looking confused. “You don’t know?”

“I left it,” Clint defends. “I mean, I left it in the back of my truck. I had it parked at the bar, but I thought you had it now, since you helped me…”

Bobbi’s staring at him incredulously as he trails off. “Jesus, you left your  _ bow _ ?”

“I knew where it was!”

Bobbi lowers her head into her arms and starts laughing quietly, the sound muffled by her shirt sleeves. When she raises her head, she’s smiling. 

“You’re a piss poor spy, Clint Barton.”

He can’t help it -- he laughs back, and it feels strange, because he hasn’t really laughed genuinely in a long time. The only other times he had laughed since being rescued from the Raft, it was because he was enjoying other people’s pain, and didn’t want to admit it.

“Yeah, I know. Guess my hands are going to be my weapon for awhile.”

Bobbi’s face slides into a look that makes it seem like she’s contemplating something specific -- it’s been years, but he can still tell -- and when she finally gets up, Clint follows her movements as she walks slowly towards the closet door on the other side of the room.

“I ran into a someone when I was in New York recently,” she says as she opens the door. “A woman named Colleen Wing. She offered to enroll me in some self-defense classes.”

“You need self-defense classes,” Clint repeats. “Right.”

“I was rusty,” Bobbi shoots back. “And she was good. And I had nothing better to do while I was there. So I trained under her for a few months, and then went back underground. Before I left, she gave me something to train with -- something that she said I could learn to fight with, if I wanted.” 

“Look, I know I lost a lot of blood, but I have no idea where you’re going with this,” Clint says tiredly as Bobbi emerges from the closet, holding out what Clint recognizes is a long sword sheathed in its leather holder. He feels his eyes widen at the sight.

“I know a bow has always been your thing, and I really shouldn’t encourage this...but have you ever considered using a sword?”

***

 

Laura’s in the middle of reading, trying to take her mind off of everything she can’t forget, when the phone rings. Her heart leaps into her throat, even though the phone has been ringing for weeks, and it’s never the people she wants to hear from -- it’s always a let down when it’s her mom, or the doctor, or a parent at school calling to remind her of a meeting she’s forgotten. 

She knows when she calls T’Challa, she’s not going to get anything. But the phone she uses every day...the one that’s a part of her regular life...maybe, just maybe, that’s how he’s going to contact her.

The calendar in the room has hit 55 days, and she’s no closer to having any information about where Clint is, or any confirmation that he’s even alive other than what she believes.

“Hello?” She reaches absently for the phone, shoving it underneath her chin as she closes the book over her index finger.

“I assume you’re waiting to hear from someone else.”

“I don’t even know at this point,” Laura admits, her heart falling back to its place in her chest. Maria Hill sighs quietly.

“We’re doing everything we can. I just want you to know that.”

“I know. Why are you calling?” Laura’s not about to beat around the bush; as much as Maria was a friend, she just didn’t call because she wanted to talk. If that was the case, she would’ve simply shown up on the doorstep and demanded wine and chips.

“I don’t want to upset you,” Maria starts. “But --”

“Anything that starts with ‘I don’t want to upset you’ already is upsetting me,” Laura cuts in, letting the book slide off her finger and onto the floor with a small thud. “So just get on with it.”

“We think you might be in danger,” Maria continues. “We’re not sure. But we’re getting more information on what happened when Clint was imprisoned, and we can’t confirm that he wasn’t forced into giving up intel about you, or your whereabouts.”

Laura’s breath catches in her throat. “So someone’s coming after us?” she asks, fighting to keep her voice steady, even as her heart starts to beat faster.

“Maybe. We don’t know,” Maria responds. “We’ve got this phone line blocked for the next five minutes, but after this, you need to be careful about what you tell people and who you talk to, especially if you don’t trust the connection.”

Laura leans back on the couch and closes her eyes, wishing she could scream. The threat of danger wasn’t something that was new to her, because that was what came with marrying Clint and being with Clint. Laura had always known that, and she had always accepted that. But even with all the scares and false alarms, there had never been anything that truly made her worry about her family’s well-being -- mostly because Clint was always around the corner, even if he was staying away for safety’s sake. And if he wasn’t, Natasha was there. Or Nick, or Maria. With Clint MIA and Natasha dealing with her own issues and Nick more or less underground, at this point, she’s down to just Maria -- and as close as she is with her husband’s old co-worker, her words don’t have quite the same reassurance. 

“Just stay vigilant, Laura. I know you can handle yourself, but I need you to be aware. I’m sending some guys over there to keep a watch on you, just in case, and you know who to call if you need anything.”

Laura nods, tightening her fingers around the receiver. “I understand. Will you -- you’ll call if you hear anything?” She doesn’t elaborate on the question, but she knows she doesn’t have to.

“You’re still in contact with Wakanda, I assume?”

“Yes,” Laura confirms. “But T’Challa says there’s been nothing.”

“Don’t lose hope, Laura.” Maria’s voice turns gentle, losing its sharp warning tone that’s been present since the beginning of the call. “Clint -- I know him.  _ You _ know him. He’s a fighter. Just because he’s not coming home, it doesn’t mean he’s not trying to get home.”

Laura swallows down a sob she can’t help. “I know.” She hangs up the phone feeling sad and a little lost, and then checks the baby monitor before getting up and walking into the kitchen. As Laura pours herself a glass of midday wine, she notices Cooper lying facedown on the couch, holding an iPad and staring at it intensely.

“Hey, buddy.” Laura leans against the doorframe that separates the kitchen and living room. “What are you watching?”

“Videos,” Cooper answers, not taking his eyes off the screen. Laura frowns and walks over, catching sight of what looks like a violent bar fight. For a moment, she’s too caught off guard to react; she doesn’t even know where he’s found the video but she knows enough about exposing her children to violence. Clint being an Avenger and being out in the field on a daily basis was bad enough.

“No more,” she says shortly, leaning over to grab the iPad. Cooper wrenches out of the way, rolling back and up, and Laura’s temper shortens.

“ _ Cooper _ .”

“But the guy moves like dad!” Cooper protests. 

Laura can’t help it -- she glances down at the video he’s been watching. It’s something that was clearly shot with a cell phone, because the actions are dark and grainy and hard to see. But Laura can hear the sounds coming from the fight, and she’s heard enough of Natasha and Clint sparring to know she doesn’t recognize them.

“Coop, dad’s an Avenger,” Laura says finally. “A lot of people move like him.”

“Aunt Nat doesn’t,” Cooper answers, looking up. “She’s more fidgety. And she uses those blue thingys.”

Laura doesn’t know how to answer that, so she grabs for the iPad again. This time, Cooper lets her take it, and then looks up at Laura guiltily.

“Sorry,” he says, blowing out a breath. “I didn’t mean to watch it. It just came up while I was looking something else.”

Part of her doesn’t believe him, because she knows Cooper and she knows him well -- since childhood, he’d been fascinated by Clint’s superhero antics, even though they both tried desperately to hide the true nature of what he did. When Cooper became old enough to realize when his parents were keeping things from him, they’d made the decision to be open about what Clint really did when he left the house for days or weeks on end -- with the compromise and promise that Cooper wouldn’t try anything himself, or tell any of his friends about his dad’s real job.

But he’d asked the questions -- all of them. He’d played with pretend bows and Clint had shown him his uniform, and while Laura had enough faith in her son to know he wasn’t going to run off and join the army to satisfy his curiosity, it was still a curiosity that ran deep, and one that hadn’t gone away.

“It’s okay,” Laura decides, tucking the iPad under her arm. “But you’ve hit your screen limit for today, so I need you to start your homework.”

Cooper grumbles under his breath but gets up grudgingly, and Laura watches him climb the stairs. She waits until he’s out of sight before she looks at the iPad again, where the video has cut itself off unceremoniously in the middle of a punch.

_ He moves like dad. _

Laura shakes off Cooper’s words, and drinks the rest of her wine.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters will be updated as quickly as I can write them; additional characters will be added as they appear. [Find me on tumblr](http://isjustprogress.tumblr.com) for more fic, flails, or just to yell.


End file.
